


Wellness Check

by Bawgdan



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drama, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:22:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28188387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bawgdan/pseuds/Bawgdan
Summary: Everyone is acting a bit too cool during the apocalypse for Machi's taste.“He tried to hate all of humanity for being so fragile and ephemeral but he couldn't keep it up because hating everyone is the same as hating no one.” ~ Agustina Bazterrica
Relationships: Hisoka/Machi (Hunter X Hunter)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 39





	1. we're on a rock in space

**_“Our binges on each other were constructing something behind our backs: the stubborn stains of intimacy marked our hands.” ~ Stephanie Danler_ **

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Birth is naturally unlucky. Nobody wants to be here—save for the people who hit the pussy lottery. With their rich families. Their inherited status. Money they never worked hard for. Through legal thievery, dressed as entrepreneurship, boot straps up to your knees, soles that have never touched mud. 

When you're a kid digging through other people's trash, you see the business men in their nice suits and you locate the wrongness, but you don't have the vocabulary to call it oppression yet. Meteor City is a pit stop for capitalists. Machi saw no end to it. She's tried to envision a life after capitalism but her imagination is stunted. She cannot conceive a better quality of life. The banality of capitalism had corroded her capacity to feel.

Everything has been ugly for all of Machi's life.

So she is quite confused by her reaction when she turns on the news and discovers that there is an asteroid heading towards the Earth. Vulnerability unlocks itself from a cramped, dirty place.

"What the fuck!" She shoots up from the couch, knocking Pakunoda's beer out of her hand. The carpet absorbs the piss water. They're frozen in crypt-like silence. The TV tells them that life on Earth has a week—well life will go on. Roaches will survive it. 

For the first time in Machi's life, she truly feels powerless. You can't finesse your way out of the world ending. There's no way to shove the entirety of the galaxy inside of a bag and preserve it for later.

And what are the capitalist going to do? Negotiate a deal with gravity?

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What does this mean for the troupe?

Well. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Death is nothingness.

Machi visits Chrollo, whose demeanor hasn't changed. If anything, he is more so flippant. His carelessness is what attracts the flies. His tongue is the honeycomb for the maggots. 

"An asteroid is too gentle a punishment if you ask me." Chrollo's place in Meteor is filled with junk he hasn't touched for years. He has a catalogue of rare things that lost their value at the exact moment he won them, depreciating the entire journey to his apartment. He explained that the materials themselves don't matter. The point of it all is that he gets to do exactly what the politicians and CEOs get to do to the world. Meteor isn't underdeveloped. Contrary to popular belief, Meteor is wealthy with talented people who are grossly exploited. The point of all this clutter in his apartment is that none of it matters to him, but somewhere else, someone paid for it. Life is meaningless. Chrollo gets off to hurting people who have found purpose in this meaningless error that everyone had agreed to call life.

"Are you really sad about it?" He notices the unnatural sag in her shoulders.

"I don't know how to feel about it." Machi hasn't felt anything for such a long time, that her senses are heavy. She can smell the dust. The smell of old cigarette smoke turns into a taste in her mouth. She can smell his sweat in the leather of his chewed up furniture.

"We're on a rock, swimming through nothingness and we chose to pollute the air and enslave people. It's the least we deserve." Chrollo doesn't pacify her bad feelings. 

For more than half of her life, Chrollo had been a source of comfort. He made sense when he eroticized chaos. _Sticking it to the man in the ass_ —is what he'd say. _Just like they'd done us. Fucking us in the ass._

Machi watches him stare up at the dirty sunroof in his ceiling. Pigeons have pecked and shit all over it. Light filters through the grime, slithering down the perfect bone structure of his brutal face.

"I wonder if it will be painless. Will we suffer? What stops working first, the bowels or your heart?" He smiles brightly at this nothingness, licking his teeth.

Machi doesn't believe she is a model of sanity, but she is now certain that Chrollo has never had a sane thought in his life.

"How many people are going to shit themselves when it happens?" He laughs, the beautiful muscles in his stomach tightening.

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Hisoka wakes up to the sound of his phone vibrating next to his head. He dips his hand beneath the pillow, holding the screen up to his face. It's Illumi who is a texting kind of guy. _Talking requires a lot of effort_ —he'd say whenever Hisoka decided to forgo text messages. Hisoka is the talkative type. His mind moves like a trapeze from one thought to the next. Hisoka purrs a sleepy _Hello_ into his phone, his eyes glued shut with eye-crust. 

"The world is going to end," Illumi says this like he is sharing what he is having for breakfast.

"Eventually, yes. The sun is going to turn into a black hole some day." Hisoka loves spontaneity. He picks at the sleep in his left eye. His long eyelashes peeling away from each other.

"No. Really. Turn on the news." Illumi is crunching on cereal. Hisoka can hear the spoon clicking against the bowl.

Hisoka arches his back, uncurling his body as he sits up. When he can't seem to find the remote under the sheets and pillows, he gets out of bed. The cold air licks at his morning wood. Illumi slurps into his ear.

"It's pretty crucial." He sucks on his spoon. Hisoka hums when he finds the remote stuck in the cushions of a chair.

"Absolutely absurd." Illumi inhales and the right corner of Hisoka's mouth twitches. He turns on the television and every channel is about this troublesome asteroid. Illumi smacks his lips, then Hisoka makes an obscene groan. He sits down on the edge of the bed, his body sticky with the sweat he didn't shower off last night.

"That's it? An asteroid. Tsk." He hisses through his teeth. 

"An asteroid is pretty damn serious if you ask me." Illumi hiccups like a baby. 

"Ooooh I'm not scared of the fucking asteroid. People are a lot more terrifying than a space rock." Hisoka wraps his fingers around his erection, lets it soften in his palm.

"I didn't think about it like that."

They share a reprieve of silence. Hisoka doesn't have any terminal fears. Nothing scares him. Not even this. _Death is a state of mind_ —is his warped philosophy. 

"Well this sucks. I had so much to do." Hisoka falls back onto the bed and stares at the triangles of sunlight on the ceiling.

"So little time." Illumi snorts a little laugh.

"Now what?" 

"I guess we just wait it out. What are you gonna do with a week to live, Hisoka?" Illumi asks with his mouth full.

When catastrophes happen, everyone asks 'where were you that day' and Hisoka finds himself stumped on the idea. Where will he be? What should he be doing? Very few people know this but in a way, he is romantic about those kinds of things. Even if the answer isn't traditional. Hisoka _digs_ sentimental value.

" _Illumi_ , I haven't a clue."

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	2. post sex post irony

_**“Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls.”~Anaïs Nin** _

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In the movies, the end of the world unspools into chaos—ubiquitous threads of dread. Cars swerving into fire hydrants and the sky is always an infected red like a cut open carcass. A baby stroller careening into the flames of traffic. 

That isn't the case at all in the real world. Machi stands in line at the bank, as absurd as it is, she is waiting, quietly for money that won't matter when the sky blows up. She sucks on tasteless gum, the minty kind with weak flavor. The delayed reaction of her environment makes her anxious. She sweats profusely in her sweatshirt trying very hard not to imagine burning alive with no possibility of survival.

The lady in front of her has been holding up the line for thirty minutes, cashing out her savings bonds and demanding that her total be broken down into specific denominations. Lots of singles. Crispy large bills. A roll of gold coins, not the chewed up silver ones.

"You know, I think this asteroid business is a hoax from the government." She prolongs the abuse she inflicts on the teller.

Machi scrunches her nose then swallows her gum dry. Dread had dried up the saliva in her mouth.

"They couldn't put chips in us so they think telling us we are gonna get wiped out like the dinosaurs is gonna whip us into shape—" The lady goes on and the teller nods along, counting through the crisp bills like she's shuffling cards.

_Honestly, the government already controls you if you have debt and money in a bank._

This aloof insanity is pervasive everywhere she goes. She thought people would be a bit more human, a little less dead on the inside when she left Meteor. Unfortunately, York New citizens lack the charm of cynicism. They're complacent degenerates. There aren't any cars hitting the medians on the expressway heading fast into oblivion. The sky hasn't changed yet. Machi is only beginning to notice the lack of birds and animals. Humans continue to stand in long lines and shop. The shopping centers are packed like it's a holiday but no looting.

_Where is the looting?_

Perhaps, her life of _living without_ provided her immunity to the obsessive habit of buying things to cope. Machi loves money. If the world wasn't ending, she could retire early but really where the fuck are the mass riots?

On her way to her hotel, she passes a small group of religious protesters. Their signs say stupid shit like _the rapture has arrived_. They hurl vulgar insults, that she supposes are meant to 'encourage' you to repent or else: **_for sinful copulation, babies born out of wedlock, and the sodomy of children have manifested the flaming rock from God's eye_** **!** ** _Didn't you know!?_**

Somehow, these people are having the most rational reaction to the asteroid. At least they believe it's a possibility and not some conspiracy to extra oppress the sheeple. She believes this is better than continuing to participate in consumerism. Their dumb madness validates her madness. 

When she turns a corner, there's a hoard of cats running in the opposite direction. Their tails straight up in the air.

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Machi allows herself to sink into the queen size mattress in her dirty sneakers. The collar of her sweatshirt sits over her chin. The cherry earrings Pakunoda had given her twist her lobes, wound up in her sweaty hair. Her phone buzzes for hours. Machi has no incentive to answer. She doesn't want to talk about the asteroid. Truthfully, she wants to spend the rest of the week with her mouth closed. Just in case her death comes sooner. She doesn't want debris to fly into her mouth. 

The blood pumping through her body, her bones, cells, nerves, hair follicles, Machi feels the weight of _being._ How many people had she left suffering to feel the way she does, with this protracted sense of dread. Machi doesn't regret her life. It's amazing and she beat becoming another Meteor statistic in the wealth department. Unfortunately, you can leave Meteor but it doesn't leave you no matter how many languages you learn or books you read.

In an attempt to feel something other than dread, she tucks her cold fingers under her sweatshirt, running her hands up her stomach, over the length of her rib cage. When she cups her breasts, she rubs her thumbs against her dice shaped nipple rings. She keeps her hands on her chest until they are warm. When the eroticism of dying under a sky doesn't do anything, she unbuttons her jeans. Her fingers aren't as warm as the space between her thighs, but it works up the feelings she couldn't get from squeezing her nipples. Machi rubs at herself until her orgasm pours into her left hand.

She answers the phone when it rings.

"Where the hell are you?" Shalnark uses a father's tone of voice. The _you_ is a prolonged sound, swirling inside of her ear.

"Not there. Obviously." Machi snorts.

"So it was that easy to dip out on your family?"

"I didn't want to die in Meteor. Sorry. I wanted to look at something nice and not die like a roach." She shrugs with her hands still in her pants.

"Roaches will most definitely survive." Shalnark is persuasive to strangers. It never works on Machi so she doesn't know why Chrollo couldn't call himself. She is certain Chrollo is who put him up to it. Once Machi makes up her mind, she stays consistent.

"Well, I'm not trying to be a statistic." Machi has the awareness to know that this is an absolutely bonkers statement to make. 

"Machi, no matter where you go, you're going to be a statistic. Some statistics are just better than other statistics."

"Please shut up. We're dying. Let me die the way I want to."

"Pakunoda misses you." 

Machi can see Shalnark now, staring out his window, looking at the same sky she is staring at, waiting for it to crack. He probably has the same placid expression. Chrollo has this way of talking the life out of you. Literally. They'd absorbed so much of his philosophy that smiling, frowning, _hell_ even blinking aren't instinctive anymore. She has to _think_ about smiling at the idea of Pakunoda missing her. It isn’t programmed in her muscle memory to do so.

Machi has sort of found a sense of free will in all of this. This is her first time, as far as she can remember, genuinely reacting. 

"Nobody has called Hisoka, I bet." Machi spits.

"No. You're right. A phone works both ways." 

"I thought we were all family?"

They hang up without saying bye to each other. 

Machi showers and drinks and smokes through a pack of cigarettes. As she is brushing through her hair, her phone vibrates on the counter. She catches it before it slides onto the floor. Hisoka's name pops up on the screen.

She understands him a little bit better now, reacting in a way he probably would to a caged feeling. 

The text reads: I need you to do me a favor.

Machi replies: I think I get you now.

Hisoka ignores the statement, probably because it is a heavy, out of character thing for her to say, probably because he's a dick. A healthy mix of both.

His text says: Do me a favor and be with me **_colon three xoxoxox_ **

Machi says: I hope you roll your ankle.

Hisoka sends his location. Machi would usually ignore this for days, but she doesn't have days to ignore him anymore. 

Chrollo loves to say that God works in mysterious ways. The planet is massive. The odds are very slim for Hisoka and Machi being in the same place at the same time. It still happens. She imagines Hisoka is a lot of fun to die with.

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A while ago, Hisoka asked Machi if she were surviving or living. His leg was split open up to his thigh. Machi sat between his legs, piecing the skin back together. She pretended not to hear him. 

As the world is coming to an end, she realizes that she has been in survival mode and that it's been this way since she was a baby. Machi doesn't know anything about living conventionally. Perhaps, Hisoka does. He doesn't talk about where he comes from. She didn't need to answer him. He already knew the answer. 

Machi steps off the elevator at the hotel he's been staying at. She slides her back pack off her arm when she makes it to his door, dragging it on the floor. She knocks with the knuckles of her index and middle finger. The door isn't fully closed. It cracks open, in typical Hisoka fashion, always inviting danger for dinner. She often wonders if his behavior is a symptom of his childhood— _if he had one and actually isn't an alien from a different planet._

The smell that curls from the crack is clean, like a candle that is labeled Morning Dew. Machi flattens the palm of her hand on the door to give it a shove. Inside of the hotel room there's flowers. Everywhere. A clutter of camellias, hydrangeas, carnations, dahlias, and more she cannot put a name too. Her first reaction is to be sort of disgusted but she knows Hisoka. This isn't a stroke of romance. This is cruel spontaneity. He steps out of the bathroom with a flower crown on his head, purple and green rhinestones around his eye sockets, and the green pair of panties she'd let him keep after he had stuffed them in his mouth.

"I didn't think you'd come." He is holding a tube of lipgloss with this overtly beautiful yet blank expression.

"Don't act coy about it." Machi always comes around. Her mouth twitches when she notices how his penis doesn't fit in the crotch of her old thongs. She wants to laugh but can't find the energy to.

The curtains are pulled open and sunlight fills the room with complete warmth. She feels exposed even though she's the one fully dressed. 

"Why all this?" She gestures at the flowers.

"I'm trying to replicate paradise..." He tosses the lip gloss onto the bed, standing in front of the window. Buildings slice through his watery reflection. The sun drops a tiny shadow of bird shit on the floor. 

"The biblical kind!" Hisoka smacks his lips dramatically.

"The Garden of Eden?" Machi observes the dimples in his lower back and the thin strip of fabric between his ass cheeks. 

"Yes!" Hisoka snaps his fingers. Glitter floats from his body as he turns away from the window. He steps around the flowers, reaching out for the baseball cap on her head, flicking it off. It thumps beside her feet. The friction makes her hair stick up. Hisoka picks the flower crown from his head and rests it, awkwardly, on Machi's. He smells amazing. Hisoka drops his arms and she takes a deep whiff of his deodorant. 

"I look stupid." Machi's chest deflates. They stare at each other. Hisoka blinks first, then smiles like a person, in a way she could never. 

"Just a little bit." Licking his bottom lip, he holds up his thumb and index finger, pinching at invisible inches. 

All of Machi's life, she's been congratulated for having strength. No one could perceive her survivalist nature as something worth correcting. Even Machi, herself, exploited her own trauma. She could never get a clear explanation on what it means to be a strong person from any of her peers or why it makes her so special. She can't stop an asteroid from obliterating the planet. She definitely won't survive it.

Hisoka is the only person she's ever met to challenge her. He has a probing way of looking her in the face. From the first time they met, she knew that he knew that she was a phony. All of them are to a certain extent but she was the only one aware of her performance. He said she has that _'look'_ in her eyes. Machi understood what he was trying to say but still hasn't figured out if the look he is talking about is literal or metaphorical.

She looks away from his face, adjusting the flower crown on her head. This small gesture delights Hisoka because it means she's willing to participate. Machi steps out of their closeness to sit on the bed. The flower crown gets glitter all over her hands. She looks down at her lap and the front of her body is dusted in colorful glitter.

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk what im doing thank you for reading though. this has been inspired by my job. im an essential worker and when the pandemic happened, you guys wouldn't believe the people who clung to the routine of coming to my job every day. I believe if the world was ending, people would under-react the same way they have with covid. WELL speaking from an American perspective. Americans would act like the world isn't ending LMAO cos were bathed in the blood of Jesus or whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean.


	3. pretty privilege

**_“I was embarrassed by my perceived spiritual weakness, my sickness of the soul, my diseased moral character.” ~ Melody Moezzi_ **

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Machi can just tell that Hisoka has never had an awkward phase. Not because he has no sense of shame. He has this unreserved locomotion about himself, like he's never had to consider the possibility of being ugly. He sits in a chair with his feet propped on the mattress, a tub of ice cream in his lap. The spoon taps against his teeth. Each swallow requires him to close his eyes. He grimaces just so, sucking in his jaws as the ice cream slides down his throat. Hisoka eats like a beautiful person. His Adam's apple dips. He squeezes out a syrupy moan. Machi sits a healthy distance away from him, with the fluffy pillows stuffed behind her back. The plastic of the flower crown digs into her scalp.

"Fuuuck. This tastes so good." He actually whines.

"You've never been told you're ugly before." Machi tucks her hands in the sleeves of her sweatshirt. 

"Are you making a statement, Machi?" He quirks a brow, still floating in the waters of his food-orgasm.

"I am." She is actually very offended by Hisoka's beauty. _Of course_ , God would put a weirdo like him inside of a perfect body. Symmetrical face with the kind of eyelashes Pakunoda paid for. Just enough body fat, barely any. His existence is rude. Machi frowns lopsidedly.

"You must think I'm ugly or somethin." Hisoka punctuates the sentence with a forced lisp, scooping the silver spoon deep into the tub of mint ice cream. He stares at her big toe jutting from the frayed hole of her sock.

"Sorta. You have a dumb mouth. It's too big." Machi sniffs. Hisoka slowly shoves the spoonful of ice cream into his big mouth. He opens so wide, the spoon cleaves through a web of his saliva. Exposing his healthy pink gums and straight teeth. His canines are unusually pointy. 

"I don't think you're ugly." He says after a moment, still staring at her toe.

"Oh?" She tilts her head. 

"You're a solid seven right now." Hisoka drops the spoon in the bucket and sits it on the floor. The flowers waft a persistent smell of sweet dampness that reminds Machi of cold body sweat. 

"Right now?" Tuh!" Machi isn't inclined towards superficial feelings, yet having thought very hard about how pretty he is stirs up difficult feelings. She folds her arms over her chest.

"You could be a nice nine if you took off your clothes." He leans forward. She notices the deep concave of his armpits. _Hardly any body fat_. She squints. 

"I haven't been here an hour and you're asking me to take my fucking clothes off." Machi clicks her tongue. 

"I have an aesthetic I'm trying to achieve and you're ruining it with your truck driver stink." Hisoka is baiting her. 

"I do not stink!" Machi has an irrational fear of smelling bad having swam through garbage for the vast majority of her childhood. "Your aesthetic is dumb and hokey. You do know Eve made Adam eat the apple and ruined his fucking life."

"Who said I was supposed to be Adam? I could be the snake or the apple." The tip of his penis peeks out of the panties.

"I sure as fuck am not being Eve." She blushes rather violently, slamming her fists down into the mattress.

"Of course not! I don't like to think you came from my rib!" Hisoka laughs with a breath of incredulity.

"This pretend shit is so dumb." She yanks the flower crown from her scalp, tugging some of her hair along with it. 

"Machi, human existence is a radical act of creativity. We only universally agree on fucking and eating to survive. Everything else is up to the imagination." He shrugs. 

"Well, I'd rather be humdrum." Her hair stands up like she's been struck by lightning.

"That's not true at all. You're here with me for a reason. You just can't see the vision yet!" He is right.

Hisoka stands up rather abruptly, vanishing into the bathroom, reappearing after knocking something over. He stands in the door with one hand on his hip and a pair of silver nail clippers in the other.

"Take off your socks. Your toenails are making my skin crawl. Please?" The _please_ sits on the precipice of a grimace. 

Gobsmacked, Machi opens her mouth big but the inane randomness of the request dwarfs the dregs of her sensibilities. To her dismay, she finds herself complying, snatching her dingy socks off her feet.

Hisoka slumps into the bed, cupping the heel of her right foot. He presses his thumb into her Achilles tendon. 

"Why do you want my toes this close to your face." She hopes her feet don't stink, which is silly because it's the very least he deserves for being in her personal space.

"Because you've always taken care of me but who takes care of you?" Hisoka starts with her big toe, the worst perpetrator of ugliness. He proposes this with immense earnestness. The sunlight changes the color of his eyes to deep amber. 

"Myself." Machi turns her head away from him, settling for the view of the city.

"How's that working out for you?" Hisoka moves on to the next toe, maneuvering her calf on his leg. Hunched over, fully invested in the task.

"I guess it's paid off." 

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Chrollo has a sober mind, which makes him an extremely compelling and persuasive person. He means what he says, with the conviction of a devout believer in ' _whatever it is that he believes in'_. A God but not the God that asks for ten percent of your earnings. 

Machi's absence offends everyone, most of all it crosses Chrollo. If he were capable of feeling _hurt_ , he'd call it heartbreak. Coincidentally, she's missing along with Hisoka (who nobody ever puts their eggs in a basket for). Unfortunately, it is not Hisoka at the receiving end of his ire. Chrollo sees too much like mindedness in Hisoka. He didn't pick Hisoka to be a follower. There are some people you're simply drawn to without scientific reasoning. Hisoka possessed that kind of power and anyone with the ability to convince Chrollo, the divine lord of bullshitters, is worth having around.

Machi, however, is the standard of piety Chrollo approves of. She's always been the least likely to doubt him. Machi could do no wrong. Machi is always the first to offer herself for a sacrifice. Machi was each of his fingers. Machi lived in the space between his eyes. 

"It's not like she's dead!" Nobunaga just about slams his beer bottle down. Chrollo glares down the table. Machi's empty designated seat haunts the entire room.

"She might as well be. Missing people are usually dead people..." Uvogin volleys with his area of expertise. With a red ball point pen, he scribbles on a napkin _'Here lies Machi K. Dead as a doornail. Very Fucking Dead'_ , then gently folds it over the back of her chair. Nobunaga flares his nostrils, a ring of red around his wet eyes.

"I wish you'd get a better sense of humor. You're awfully unfunny." Feitan balls the napkin in his fist and tosses it on the floor. The thick cloud of cigarette smoke absorbs the smell of their greasy take out. Save for Chrollo and Pakunoda, who took Machi's vanishing act the poorest, the troupe squabble amongst each other. Pakunoda picks at her noodles with her chopsticks with an absent look in her eyes. 

"I think...I know why she did it." Chrollo speaks and Shalnark doesn't throw his box of food at Uvogin. It's simple—Machi had underestimated the gravity of her decision.

"I think she felt powerless and simply reacted to it. Leaving gave her a sense of autonomy. For the first time in her life, she feels terrified." After a long pause, Chrollo pops open the tab of his diet drink and before taking a sip, he affirms his statement with a nod. The revelation didn't lessen the feeling of betrayal, but forgiveness is a process. 

Pakunoda dissolves into tears. She tries to catch her tears but her sobbing is so violent, her nose leeks. Dropping her chopsticks, she cries into her spicy noodles. 

"I just don't want to fucking die! What the fuck is wrong with all of you!?" She rubs her long red nails at her temples. Her mascara trickles down to the corners of her mouth.

Chrollo grimaces. He doesn't mean for his first reaction to be disgust. The outburst is just wildly uncharacteristic. Pakunoda weeps like a child. Not like a woman who wears seven inch heels for fun. The room deadens. This must be Pakunoda's way of showing autonomy as well, he figures. He sits his drink down and says without blinking, "You were going to die anyway. That's the price you pay for being born."

This worsens her sudden illness. No one knows how to console her. Machi would know.

" _Half Gods are worshipped with wine and flowers. Real Gods require blood._ " Sucking his teeth, Chrollo falls back into his seat. "Dying isn't the worst thing that can happen to you. Lighten up."

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Evening crept up on Machi. She occupied herself by finishing off Hisoka's ice cream, staring at the doomsday counter at the bottom of the screen as nicely dressed people talked about the good things happening in the world. An old man had turned 102 years-old today. Long lost sibling reunions. Cake eating contests. Someone won the lottery as well. Like all this positive energy could make up for the moral deficit of human civilization. 

Hours had gone by before she noticed the darkness in the hotel room. She'd eaten the whole tub of ice cream. When she looked over her shoulder at him, it then dawned on her that she'd been using the same spoon that had been in his mouth. Hisoka hadn't moved from his spot on the bed. He is tapping at his phone with a focused face. The light of the screen gives life to the shimmer all over his face. At some point, he put the flower crown back on his head. Some of his hair curls around the fake flowers and leaves.

"Are you not yet bored with your dollar store version of decadence?" Machi throws the spoon into the bucket. She can only see his right eye. He keeps his phone directly in front of his face, even though he's looking right at her. Hisoka doesn't say anything. His personality works like that. One moment he's a leaky faucet of unwarranted perceptiveness and then, seemingly out of nowhere, he's a brick wall. Machi rises from the floor to stand by the bed.

"You invited me over solely to tease me to death then ignore me." She is partially joking.

"I clipped your dirty toenails." Hisoka isn't looking at her anymore.

"You clipped my toenails just to say that you did it. Not because it meant anything." 

"Hmmmmm...I if that's how you feel, stinky feet." He sinks into the large pillows, smiling at a joke she isn't in on.

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Machi washes her hair under the tub's faucet, sitting in a murky soup of shampoo, conditioner, and soap scum. Her knees and toes hurt from supporting the awkward hunch of her back under the running water as she rinses out the conditioner. She makes sure to wash behind her ears. Behind your ears and the bend in your arms are exact locations for stink. 

When she gets conditioner in her eye, it burns like absolute hell. She sputters a strand of _shit shit shitty mcshit shits_. She turns off the water, surrendering to defeat. This is practice for the surrender to the asteroid. Maybe it won't be so bad if it hits the other side of the planet. Luck is her thing. Evading is hardwired into her brain. Machi uncurls her back, flattening herself into the room temperature bathwater. Her stinging tear ducts weep purposeless tears. It feels like the entirety of her face is on fire. Her nasal cavity opens.

Time passes. Machi sits in the tub until her skin prunes. Adopting a dead stillness, in preparation for death. Melting eyeballs. Shriveled skin. Dead skin and suds form a ring around the tub. 

_If I act dead, maybe it could correct the error of occurring events. I can trick nature if I try hard enough. Gods are real only because someone believes_ —she arrives at destination sedated insanity.

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The issue with the single bed presents itself. Machi has slept on concrete, gravel, and forest floors. Not once in her life has she shared a sleeping bag or a blanket. Let alone a mattress with a man. She stands at the side of the bed with a towel wrapped around her head. Having forgone drying herself off, she'd put one of the complimentary bathrobes. She's wet from her scalp, down to the space between her toes.

Hisoka had rolled over, his back facing her, body stiff like he's asleep but Machi's intuition tells her otherwise. They're comfortable but not **that** comfortable with each other. 

The walls of her mouth water at the thought of his body inches away from her. Her feelings reach a point of mutiny. Butterflies tornado inside of her belly but her brain is rightly opposed to being that close to anyone.

"Hisoka?" Machi traces the inner lining of her jaw with her tongue. 

"Machi." Hisoka has the tinkle of a smile in his voice.

"We haven't eaten dinner."

"We haven't."

Machi waits out a painfully long silence before climbing into the bed. 

"Are you hungry?" He asks.

Machi lays down on her back, folding her hands on her chest. Six inches between them their bodies. Her legs soak up the heat of his body beneath the blanket, where his scent is most potent. 

"Not especially." As her eyes adjust to the darkness, she focuses her attention on the ceiling and it's angular shadows. 

"Is this how you envisioned the end of the world?" She hopes speaking will lessen butterflies. They float into her throat and get stuck there.

"The world ended the moment the chicken laid the egg, Machi baby." Hisoka's voice is awfully clear in the buzzing silence. The muted TV blinks at them.

"Were you born a fatalist or did that come later?" Machi scrunches her nose at _baby_.

"I'm being reasonable. Not fatalistic." Hisoka has always just gotten it, for as long as he can remember. "Fatalists are sad do-nothings."

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Half Gods are worshipped with wine and flowers. Real Gods require blood.~ Is a Zora Neale Hurston quote from one of my fav books ever. Their Eyes Were Watching God. I like to think that Chrollo is a well read sophisticated crazy person. 
> 
> Thank you for reading my cope. I might also be a sophisticated crazy person too.


	4. savor and save it for later

**_“There is exquisite lightness in waking each morning with the knowledge that the worst has already happened.” ~ Emily St. John Mandel_ **

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_Incorrigible Gemini,_

_Now isn't the time to consider what you ought to be doing. Just because you **can** doesn't mean that you **should.** Today, you should wisely use your time. Twenty four hours only seems like a short amount of time to survivalists. _

_~ </3 xoxoxox _

_6:30 a.m._

This astrology business started as a joke. Illumi, being the hyper-critical skeptic that he is once told Hisoka that he too could write dumb, vague, gobbity goop and capitalize on it— _if he wanted to_. Hisoka, also a skeptic but a slave to his imagination, likes to believe that the stars contributed to his spiritual makeup. Life is already unbalanced as is—he doesn't want to reduce himself to just atoms and cells and copulation. Since that time, after Hisoka read Illumi his horoscope on an airship, sometimes at random (more often than Illumi will ever admit), Illumi will text Hisoka his interpretation of a horoscope.

To Hisoka's surprise, Illumi's sense of humor allows him to be very good at it. Objectively, Illumi is a horrible person, but he is one of the most thoughtful people Hisoka has ever met. The road to hell just always happens to be paved in gold.

Hisoka taps at the keyboard with his thumb: You should be getting paid.

Illumi speedily texts back: I really should. Run me my money......$$$$

Machi's knees press against him and she sneezes on his back. Her spit tickles. Locking the screen, Hisoka slides his phone beneath the pillow. He turns around to face her. Machi doesn't sleep with her eyes fully closed. Her hands are cupped around her cheeks, looking like a doughy cherub sleeping on a cloud in a renaissance painting. Her hair had dried overnight into zig zagging sprigs. The towel had slid off her head during the night and ended up hanging over the mattress. 

Hisoka gets really close to her face, pulling the covers over their heads. The belt around her robe twisted so in her sleep, that it loosened. Her robe hangs open and her nipples stare back at him. 

"Machi." Hisoka taps a finger at the puddle of spit forming behind her bottom lip. He doesn't expect her to answer. She does suck in her lip, swallowing the saliva, when he removes his finger from her lip.

"I didn't know your nipples were pierced," he says conversationally to her slumbering face. 

Hisoka has always, from day one, been attracted to Machi, but she isn't susceptible to his charm. Even Illumi, someone Hisoka is also very much attracted to, bought into his allure. Being the _Incorrigible Gemini_ that he is, Hisoka collects flings as you would lint in your pocket. The same goes for enemies. Machi stands in this sexless purgatory as far as he can tell. Most people aren't indifferent when it comes to his presence. Machi is indifferent. She doesn't hate him nor does she love him. She likes him enough to die with him for shits and giggles. That's better than this gray nothingness he feels subjected to. This enhances his primitive desire to be adored by her. 

And he's not one to seek approval from anyone.

Slowly, Hisoka slides his index finger into her dripping mouth. Her teeth graze at his skin. The pad of his fingertip touches her tongue. Machi snaps open her eyes. Their noses so close, they can see the patterns in each other's irises. She closes her mouth around his finger in a way that doesn't feel salacious but asserts intimacy. 

Hisoka has a lot of problems, but if lust were a clinical condition, he would consider being medicated for it. He easily gets a terrible case of the _bads_ if he doesn't pacify himself. He would only _consider_ it, for he is incorrigible and that has gotten him a lot farther in life than being adequately sane.

Machi removes the hand she hadn't been sleeping on from her cheek, taking her fingers around his wrist. With a light tug, she slides his finger from her slippery, puckered lips. A thread of saliva attached to his finger.

While Hisoka has mastered the appropriate repose for deceit, it takes a considerable amount of effort to not balk. He does settle for a crooked smile, because his body refuses to _not_ react. 

"The world is still ending." Machi's voice rattles with sleep.

"Yes. It is. There's nothing we can do about it." It can continue to end if that means he gets to stick his finger in Machi's mouth.

"Hisoka, is it wrong that I don't want to die?" Considering the many people she has clapped, it is absolutely absurd that she has a strong aversion to death, but he has a diagnosis for her and a prescription.

"I don't think it's wrong, but I do know it has little to do with death itself. I think it just bothers you that you really can't do anything about it. You're a sore loser." Hisoka deadpans. Machi takes it, savors it, swallows the wetness in her mouth.

"You're right." She has no fight left in her. 

"I'm a sore loser too." He hasn't admitted this to anyone before but he doesn't believe that it's a dark secret to be kept. 

"You don't want to die?" Machi blinks and Hisoka notices that her pupils aren't shrinking.

"I've never been scared of dying. I don't mind it." He has a strong urge to taste her mouth. 

The indifference he hates so much about Machi is simply the downside to her programming. Her DNA was corrupted by generations of trauma. One doesn't acquire a hefty bounty on their head with the wisdom of compassion. History can corrode potential. Shalnark was right— _I'm a statistic. A slave to history._

Machi is equally as gluttonous as Hisoka. Her love language is only underdeveloped. Her want is a quiet monster, lurking in the dark cavity of her horniness.

"Do you want to taste me for real this time?" She doesn't break the coldness of her character. She holds the same face she uses before she lands a fatal blow.

"Is that permission to?" What he really means is that she shouldn't tempt him. Hisoka doesn't half ass anything. His too muchness is toxic.

"I want you to eat me. Whole." Her canines are crooked. 

"Fingers and toes too?" Hisoka gazes back at her like a hungry cat.

"Eyeballs and tongue." She creeps her fingers from his wrist, flattening her hand under his elbow. Machi inhales the space between them, taking the initiative and unearthing her own too muchness. She kisses him firmly on the mouth, precisely on his top lip. Hisoka stops himself from saying that _she could do a lot better than that_. He picks his battles smartly. Even at the end of the world.

Instead, he spreads his body over hers. She wraps her legs around his waist. 

"If this sucks I'm going to kill myself." Machi declares this, looking him straight in the eyes. His hard penis pressed into her stomach.

"If it sucks you have permission to kill me. Then yourself." Hisoka has never been told that he sucks at anything but following the rules, but he also keeps this to himself. He combs some of the hair from her face. She has always had a clear face for someone with such a shitty diet. No pimples. No scars. No blemishes.

Machi reaches down for his erection, tilting her hips, leaving a snail trail of pre-cum on her stomach. 

"You look stupid," she says in response to his growing smile.

"I've just wanted you for a very long time." His voice tightens when he's inside of her, like it hurts to be honest. He supposes the _want_ isn't any different than the other times he's rolled in sin. Machi's face softens and he just has a _hunch_ that he isn't going to walk away unscathed.

She makes a subtle obscene noise when he presses himself deep. There's still glitter in his eyebrows and lashes. His cupid’s bow shimmers as well. She swipes at the glitter with her thumb, smearing it over his mouth.

"I can feel you in my throat." Machi can feel the pressure of his girth at her temples and behind her eyeballs.

"Where else?" Hisoka sucks her thumb into his mouth.

"In my spine." It snakes its way into her skull, consuming her brain. 

"Everywhere?"

"Like a disease." But she feels human and not like the husk of a great pretender. 

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The truth is that Illumi has taken a genuine interest in natal charts. The information aspect of it. Data and useless facts are his thing. It's how he communicates with normal people. If he knows enough about a little bit of everything, there's common ground. No one has to know that he's a weird traumatized murder baby. Killua told him that he looks like a gecko in a fit of rage, and while he isn't a self conscious person, Illumi does wonder if this is everyone's first impression of him. 

He crosses paths with Canary, and for the first time in his life, he doesn't see through her. He cares about her opinion. Does he really look like a lizard?

"Why are you still here?" He asks in regards to the _doom rock_ —that's what they're calling the asteroid on his favorite forum.

"Where else is there to go?" Canary's astuteness surprises him. He regrets treating her like a casualty. Assured death does this to you, makes you perceptive and open.

"You can go anywhere in the world. Aren't you sick of these ugly trees?" Illumi has adopted Hisoka's playfully rudimentary way of observing his surroundings. Only Hisoka would call trees ugly.

"With only what? Three days?" She blinks up at him.

"I can think of several places that you can get to in a day that's away from this place." 

Canary considers what he says for a moment, looking off into the sky. She doesn't carry herself like a child, but neither does the rest of his baby siblings. Canary's strangeness is different though. As he has been taught to do, he can see the softness of her personality. An ingredient missing in his gene pool. Tenderness. 

"You have time to sit in your big house and think about all the places you can go. If you want to look at something, nice you can—I've never had the privilege. So, I'm not missing out." Canary slowly nods her head.

Illumi doesn't know what to say to that.

"I was going to die here anyway." She shrugs.

"I suppose." His eyes widen.

"You know what I've noticed—wealthy people have an abundance of optimism the rest of us don't have." Canary looks away from him as subtle snub.

Illumi has never considered his family wealthy. He doesn't think about money at all but he figures that is her point and says nothing else.

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Melissa Broder, one of my fav writers, has a quote about being too much and having too muchness and it deeply resonated with me when I first read it. I dont take credit for the term. thank you for reading ~.~


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